Pages

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Champagne, rice, and prayers - Day 19

At 10 minutes to 9 last night we sailed into the southern hemisphere at a sedate 3 knots. All day we had discussed how to celebrate, settling on a nice mixed veg and soy/pea curry dinner, followed by Spanish 'champagne' and dark chocolate. We tried to capture this on film, realizing too late that you cannot snap a picture of the GPS at the equator and pour a libation over the side to Poseidon at the same time. So we went with Poseidon's drink and captured the GPS reading a bit south.

Rani made a traditional Hindu offering of rice - wrapped in a paper boat, which followed the champagne. I read Rani a short poem that I had written for her. Rani played a recording of the Sikh evening prayers and bowed her head in prayer. In all the rolling we spilled yet more bubbly, so hopefully Poseidon has been appeased. His friends - the various winds - must require something other than champagne because we have had little to no wind all day and night! This may change today, for I see a mass of black cloud approaching from the north as I type.

Our position at 14:30 zulu on April 8 was S 00 29 and W 131 19. We ran 73 nautical miles yesterday and have 695 more to go to Hiva Oa.

1 comment:

Congratulations! I'm so enjoying following your passage and reliving our own experience at the same time. It's wonderful, isn't it? I treasure every moment we spent on the big blue - a very special world that few experience. You are right - the technology and our sense of the world and what is possible makes all the difference. Fair winds,Lyneita Swanson

Around the World Single-Handed

Free e-book download. Harry Pidgeon's beautifully written account of the second person to sail around the world alone in an engineless 34 foot sailboat. This e-Book is a based on a carefully edited scan of the first edition including excellent photographs by the author. Click on one of the following links to download: e-pub, Mobi, and PDF. Best read on an e-reader (PDF version not as well formatted), but you can download Calibre to read e-pubs on your computer.